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Central and local government bodies are stepping up efforts to host hackathons in a bid to bring together various developers to make use of their resources and collaborate on programs and services.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is to hosting a three day hackathon event in London between June 10 and June 12 to help generate technical tools and other services to support efforts in combatting an end to sexual violence in conflict.

The event, which will be held at London’s Excel centre, is the second hackathon to be hosted by the FCO in an effort to bring together coders and developers to produce apps to assist with the department’s work.

Back in February, the Environment Agency announced the development of 17 applications during an emergency hack event held at London’s Google Campus to help communities and individual victims of flooding that ravaged parts of the UK earlier this year.

Ahead of a local government-focused ‘hackathon’ it is supporting next month, innovation charity Nesta has said hack events targeting the development of innovative apps and services are indicative of wider efforts to implement shared standards and joint services in public sector IT.

Nesta has said that hack events provide an alternative means for collaborative development to help overcome a number of challenges needing to be circumvented at local government level to commission shared digital services.

As part of the LocalGovCamp event being held in Birmingham, designers and developers from the LocalGov Digital network have announced they will be hosting a hack day on June 20 to bring together public sector IT professionals from around the country to share evidence of their work ‘with open, digital innovation’.

Haidee Bell, programme lead at Nesta’s innovation lab, has said that three finalists will be selected following the hackathon to put their innovations through real world testing at a local government level.

Bell added that in certain cases, Nesta was already involved in direct collaborations with local authorities to implement solutions devised during hack events, such as with an energy challenge in Bristol.

"We are tackling seven social challenges, to date exploring education, crime and energy. We start with an extensive phase to define the challenge well, involving experts, users and service commissioners." she said. "We start with an extensive phase to define the challenge well, involving experts, users and service commissioners."

Despite the potential innovations for local government as a result of hackathons, Bell said she hoped next month’s event would address how to move forward with the development of collaborative digital services by using open source technologies and code sharing tools like GitHub.

"I’d like to see the hack event as a key part of a journey towards common practice for local government in the UK – so the issue is how can the hack event and the ideas which are created – or indeed built upon – generate momentum which lasts beyond the event itself," she said.

As an important driver of digital innovation, Bell said she believed hack events worked best where a was a clear understanding of the problems and needs facing the subject of the hackathon – in this case – the public sector.

"After any hack, there should be channels to take forward ideas and networks in development," she added. "As a standalone, hacks have less value in the innovation process, though are often used to convince those not accustomed to open, agile development of its benefits."